The Assault
by Synonym
Summary: Five drabbles. Yamamoto/Gokudera, Hibari/Mukuro, Mukuro/Gokudera, Yamamoto - Gokudera and Lal Mirch/Bianchi.
1. The Assault, 8059

_1. Yamamoto/Gokudera_

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**The Assault**

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They're watching a symphony when realization hits Yamamoto with all the power, the impact of the violins crescendo.

Beside him, Gokudera's eyes are shut, softly, his mouth is parted, and Yamamoto can hear clearly over the music, the frantic beating of his heart. The music awakes him; the eight year old boy with a love for Bach, for Beethoven, for piano. When the percussion instruments are storming the stage, the lightness of the piano sounds shrill and haunting into the hall. A high E, the last notes in utter dissonance. Their sickening combination brings Gokudera's eyes wide, and he stares almost fearful down at the orchestra, so alive his fingers twitch for the soothing coolness of keys, the dusty slide of old compositions at his fingertips.

And Yamamoto watches him, completely besotted. World-class arrangements may be quite something, but nothing attacks his senses, attacks him at all the way Gokudera can, in all his violence and lingering tenderness, all his brutality and care. His face is raw and beautiful, and this is the moment Yamamoto chooses - above the hum of a cello and the shaky aftermath of a tympani - to lean closer to him and brush his mouth against his ear; this moment, after six years of effort and hard-work, could collapse down on Yamamoto like a flood, and he gambles it away. He knows it would be worth the risk. He's a hard-worker; he can try and try again.

It would be lovely though, if he got it perfect the first time around.

"I love you," he breathes, low as a bass, the rumble of his voice warm on Gokudera's tensing shoulder.

It's sudden and heart-achingly terrifying, but Yamamoto knows it would be worth it. He swallows fear, and it rises like a stone back up, catching in his throat.

Gokudera is perfectly sated, more relaxed than ever, and his cheeks only colour faintly, eyelids lowering as one pale hand snakes over the arm of his chair to capture Yamamoto's.

'I know,' he mouths, and he squeezes Yamamoto's hand like a vice in his own.

Gokudera tries to regain calmness, but Yamamoto hears his heart hammering, hears the excitement with his own ears; he feels Gokudera's trembling breath on his own lips.

Nothing attacks his whole self quite the way Gokudera does.

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**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**AN: **After a long while of bemoaning the quiet in the fandom, I cranked out some drabbles - all of them extremely sappy. This is my perfect Yamamoto/Gokudera moment, and by far the gayest thing I've written in life. It had good competition though, it really, _really _did.

KHR FANDOM. ARE YOU THERE?


	2. Nothing Left to Burn, 1869

_2. Hibari/Mukuro_

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**When There Is Nothing Left To Burn**

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Hibari lives in a small town, off the map, untouched by the chaos of the Japanese media; one of the last remnants of sanity in the country, with fine borders keep guard from out the country-lovers, that just rescue them from the tracks in the city. It calls to him to keep it clean, and like any gentlemen, Hibari takes the town of Namimori into his hands, he protects her like a dear friend, a dear love.

The people who roam her are volatile and tainting, and like any gentlemen, he disposes of them. Simply, because this little land of his is trying to clutch for peace with broken hands. Maybe war is Hibari's greatest pleasure, but he can set it aside for what's really important - home.

It's not always this easy, though.

Mukuro Rokudo is the poison that penetrates and pulses through his veins. He tarnishes his dearest friend, his only love, to have Mukuro's throat clutched in his grip, and he knows when it happens - and Mukuro is still in his hands, shooting his madman smile at him - that the fragile beat of the man's blood against his fingertips sends more satisfaction rushing through him than the sight of his Middle school, the sight of his Shrine or the feel of his home beneath his feet, thankful and pure.

Mukuro's tongue darts out to sweep the blood from the side of his mouth, almost rude, almost challenging, and Hibari is terrifyingly alive. It is horrifying, but just a bit thrilling to know something gives him such pleasure, and he thrives in it - tightens his grip and widens his smirk.

"You don't think I'd make it so easy for you, do you?" Mukuro taunts, the sides of his mouth lifting. His right eye stirs and whirls itself.

Hibari is knocked to the floor in an instant, tainted and in love.

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**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**AN: **They're one of my dearest OTP's. I just avoid them because I like them so particularly done - I can't even write full-length fic just in case I wreck them. Plus, the gen on them alone is awesome enough. : D


	3. the friends who forgave us, 6959

_3. TYL!Mukuro/Gokudera_

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**the friends who forgave us**

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The scent of copper sticks to Mukuro's hands like a second skin. Prison coats him in layers of grime and dust and veneer, and he's quick to lose his mannerful uptown Italian accent, he's quick to opt for silence in punishments stead. The first time he catches his reflection in water, his red eye is spinning in its socket with a bold X through every symbol, and he remembered gagging - that surging feeling of nostalgia like bile in his throat: memories of the inside of Hell, with the Devil's careless hand tossing his eyeball up and down, but Mukuro could see through illusions like windows; it didn't matter if it was Satan or Marmon, because in the end, he'd come out on top.

Vendicare weakens him like a slow poison dripping through withering veins. The first week he hadn't minded at all, sat staring into the next cell, smiling at his gagged and hand-binded comrade. Mukuro had divulged plenty to him of his other visits to the prison; don't move them like that, it burns your wrists; don't bite through it because they'll get you for that, they really will; don't try to scream when you're in there with them, it's like music to their ears.

He obeys. Surrenders. Silent and broken and Mukuro still smiles at him through the bars - smiles as he's taken away, too.

**X**

He admits the water-container was rather creative and impressive on their part. So far the Vendice had played so demure, so dully that his interest had wilted like his poor little Chrome had when he'd left. He's been stuck on memories, glazed over at their bandaged faces as they dug their sharp fingers through his ribcage; they clawed and questioned, but their was simply nothing there to find.

They tossed him in the water, and he'd inhaled a second late. His lungs expanded and ached with the liquid. They'd snapped the tube over his mouth before he could cough, and that's how he lived for ten years - alive, but not quite, with a pool of hot seawater as softly crashing waves on the sides of his lungs.

**X**

Freedom.

That first inhale and that first fit of coughs, wracking his body to his boots. It had poured out of him; the water and the blood and the life. He'd collapsed onto the icy tiles of the underground section in Vendicare, his shedding blue hair cascading around him.

**X**

"Hurt?" Gokudera asks, bashful, face forcing resentment when Mukuro's already perfectly aware he feels none. He's as young and as unbroken as Mukuro should be, but when he glances down at himself, he sees the body of an ill man, and only vague despair slips through him; in and back out.

His head shakes, his hair catching in buckles and too damn long to be helped, really, but he can't deny he quite likes it this way, when it's so smooth and elegant and he so torn and empty. Gokudera sends bolts of life through him again, the meager flush of his cheeks makes Mukuro dream and dream into the distance, _what if. _The kid's much too young and stupid, and he's just desparate and bored, but he thinks - he knows - it would work. It's not like it never did in the past.

"You cause so much damn trouble." And Gokudera scowls just like he used to, like indignant royalty, his nose wrinkling and mouth thinning and upturning. And Mukuro laughs just like he used to, like an all-knowing, all-powerful God, and this time, the truth of it weighs down even him.

"In fact, the Vendice just opened the exit for me this time. No trouble, really." This smile feels on his face. Sad. It makes the vacant space in him yearn to be full, yearn to feel. All of a sudden he's missing bandaged claws so deep through his chest he could only see their elbows.

Gokudera just kind of shifts, ever awkward. He leans a little on Mukuro's side while they wait, silent to catch no attention. "Fuck the Vendice," he mutters, sounding slightly indignant, and this is when Mukuro understands he meant trouble for _him_. In the future, Mukuro will give him a lot of it, and maybe he left a shirt in the old Gokudera's room, maybe the kid just knew something was amiss, but either way, the pale hand that's slithering into his own doesn't falter with a shred of apprehension. Gokudera knows. His hand is warm and careful on Mukuro's cold, skeletal one. He holds it for a moment.

Mukuro closes his eyes and savours the calm.

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**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

**AN: **Set present arc. Someone warn me if I dropped a spoiler in there, but I'm pretty sure it's safe.

... Aren't they sweet? I know Mukuro is most definitely not this sane. Let's pretend Chrome strightened him out or something.


	4. If it's the beaches

_4. Yamamoto Gokudera_

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**If it's the beaches**

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It's no short, or easy task.

Yamamoto pulls down the curtains and glass and boards. Yamamoto has careful, precise hands; he knows them perfectly, knows the right amount of pressure and the wrong amount of grip. This world is picked apart by him slowly, cautiously; at the end, his fingers are callous, bled by shards and splinters and smeared by teasing velvet, satin, and silk. Every soft sheet is lined with nails, needles, and Yamamoto's fingertips can pick them away in an instant after a while, after some experience.

At the end, Yamamoto looks at what he's uncovered - like he did as a child, with a treasure map napkin and a sand spade in his determined little fists, a smile, patience, the resolve of an adult - and he smiles atop his mountain of wreckage, smiles like he's found something miraculous, and among all the debris and the dust, the timber and tufts, and it could be _anything_, absolutely anything at all.

The veneer - of thick stain-glass and dense wood and tough, beaten red fabric - has pulled away to reveal a beating heart. Thump, thump, on a narrow altar. Thump, thump, and the rest of the room is silent while Yamamoto's heart drums timely with it in a percussion's duet; a calm, thudding melody. The discovery is no surprise, because Yamamoto peaked it before through the cracks and holes, knew it was waiting with its patient thump, thump. It was difficult work, sometimes, but Yamamoto would press his back to the barrier between them and listen, intently, listen, greedily. It's a great achievement to come so far, so great that Yamamoto can't stop smiling, he can't stop his face warming, his heart surging out of sync. He just wipes his eyes, and he grins.

(Yamamoto is twenty-nine when Gokudera first tells him he loves him. )

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**Disclaimer: **Still not mines. Title is from Avett Brother's song - my favourite Yamamoto/Gokudera song.

**AN:** Why are they endlessly adorable. :(


End file.
